Only a few short months ago, I thought that people wrote – magazine articles, books, even blogs – because they had something to say, something that they felt was important enough or original enough that others needed or wanted to be a part of it.

I am realizing, as I read more and as I write considerably more, that the reverse is true.  In writing – actually taking the time to compose our thoughts, conducting research to either back up our theories or just to find better ways of saying things, and then “penning” it – builds our capacity for understanding the world that we are a part of and how we affect it, and our own inward parts as well.  As we write, yes, we make a point to others, but more than that, we learn to understand ourselves and our purpose.  It is like maps.  We know where we live and know the routes to places, but when we pull up the satellite view of our “world” we understand it so much better.  That’s what writing does. It creates a map, a changeable one, that allows us to see our existence, understand it, and tweak it.

So, now that I am tearing myself out of the box that I have lived in all my life, I am realizing that things are not as I thought they were.  The whole world is inside out, chaotic if you will, and I am attempting to define myself apart from it and also to see my part in it.

Anyway, that is why I am here.  I want to write more because it is helping me to develop the real me, finally, at age 43!  I hope that some will join me here and take something away and give something back.  But, if it is only me, I will still be successful in my walk of self-examination and self-awareness, and the empowering realization that I can better the lives of others without losing myself in the process.